Trance
by ryoku1
Summary: Reim was dead then, and he's dead now, and he won't be very soon.


You were the only one who witnessed it.

Only you stood there in that dank basement, that reeked of blood, and you'd searched. Instinctually, you'd been concerned. Your tendency to simply assume the worst is something you don't like to let others see, but when members of Pandora had started turning up headless, it was difficult to deny the apprehension that came with the information. The last things he'd said to you could be his last, just as a little girl had pleaded with you not to leave her alone. She'd pleaded for you to stay, and you'd left. Reim had told you, prophetically so, that you were an idiot. Now wouldn't that be an ironic last few words?

That couldn't be the end of it. You were simply being paranoid, a product of your first real public appearance after losing your sight. Even Gilbert had noticed that something was off, and that boy was as dull as a hammer. It was just that, unwarranted caution; because Reim was fine, would always be fine. He was destined to outlive you because for goodness sakes you'd lived for a hell of a long time already. Much longer than you deserved.

But it had only been you, looking for Reim under Isla Yura's burning, screaming, mansion, when the Baskervilles told you he was already dead. You had felt nothing from the grey shadow on the floor, not a breath, not a sound, not a moan, not a twitch. The figure on the ground was dead, and without your eyes, and without his aura, you couldn't even identify the body. It was just a body, just a vessel that once held the essence that was Reim Lunettes. You'd always been able to tell which colorless figure had been Reim before, by the way his frown permeated off of him in waves, from the set of his shoulders that you could even tell when he wasn't anything more than a grey humanoid figure, from the fast tempo of his breathing that was like an overly exhausted rabbit. Even at his calmest, his breathing never seemed to slow to a normal pace, it was always faster than others, cause Reim ran on a faster clock than others, he had places to be and things to do and tea to drink and frowns to make and lectures to give. Time moved differently for Reim, and at that very moment, it didn't. No more. At that moment you couldn't even tell if that body once belonged to him. It was just a broken thing. Only you know how truly dead Reim Lunettes was.

But he wasn't. You had been so undeniably certain. No seeds of doubt had plagued your mind. You'd let him go on his own, expecting that he would be able to handle anything, when he was, in truth, defenseless. Because it was Reim; his words were his weapons, and they worked differently than your sword. When the Baskerville had said Reim was dead, you'd known he was not lying. The change of his heart beat would have told you, and there was no way for them to know you were blind either, so it stood to reason that they would have no grounds to trick you. No, none of that 'couldn't be' or 'not possible' entered your mind. Instead, the cold hard facts had permeated the air, and blended with the stench of that basement room, and it was simply so. Reim was dead, and all hopes of alliances, of cooperating, of mutual understandings between you and the crimson shikigami, evaporated in your instantaneous burst of anger. That heat gave way to cold, the same cold when the Sinclair's died. The same cold when you murdered again and again to bring them back, the same cold when you realized you had.

Reim's lungs didn't take breath, his heart didn't beat, and his blood didn't flow. You knew the body was newly dead when you entered the space, but your senses work with auras now, and vague shapes; your mind had, perhaps, known the body was Reim, the sinking feeling of dread clawing at your throat, and eye was too familiar to dismiss, but the Baskerville had said it, and made it real. Because in the haze that is now your world, you could have been wrong. You could have misunderstood. But it wasn't a misunderstanding. He was your friend, a title you didn't give out lightly, and he was dead.

But it hadn't been real. You'd been fooled, bamboozled. You like to think that if you had your eyes, you would have noticed, you would have been able to tell, but it isn't so. March Hare's power had been absolute, an illusion of the highest caliber that you never would have detected on your own. Utter and complete death, until half an hour later, when Reim came ambling back to you, brutalized and exhausted, and alive.

Only you had witnessed the death of Reim Lunettes. The others had been there when he came back, but only you had truly witnessed his raise from the grave.

So, of course only you know, witnessing the dead lifeless body in front of you, that Reim is very much alive. He feels like shit, he probably looks like shit, but Reim is alive. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Sharon is on the ground weeping, her hands, doubtlessly, fisted in her skirts, or at her eyes, and her tears unabashed as she mourns. She doesn't know. Likely wracked with guilt that Equus wasn't there to help their mutual friend, and that they obviously arrived far too late to be of any aid or comfort. Reim was dead then, and he's dead now, and he won't be very soon. You know this to be the truth of the matter.

Reim isn't going to die this way. He organizes, schedules, and does your paperwork even before you became an invalid that had to rely on creepy brats and over grown crybabies. Reim isn't like the rest of them, he's going to die of old age in an office, with two chapters of his memoirs uncompleted, because he should have been done with it five chapters ago, and he's dragging out the ending, putting too much needless details, because he's thorough, and if he doesn't no one will ever know. He's going to write the history that you all leave behind, and he's going to do it with integrity, and he'll tell the world that you were a good person, which is a lie, but it's Reim's book, and Reim's view, and that's all that matters. You'll be dead, so who cares.

Reim is going to fret over how Sheryl and Rufus still don't play fair with one another, and Sharon will see him into old age, and they'll be the closest of companions, and he might even be a best man at her wedding when the time comes, could even look after her children. Reim is going to be a lot of things, because he isn't dead. Not then, and not now.

You don't know how to comfort Sharon. You've never been good with others crying, girls more specifically. Even the memory of the youngest Sinclair makes you ill at ease, great globs of tears trickling down her cheeks, and the whole process wracking her small body. It almost makes you physically ill to recall, does now, and likely always will. In your mind's eye, you can see Sharon weeping, her shoulder's trembling, and her salty tears dripping off of her face and onto her purple gown, leaving dark mismatched splotches all down the front.

To Sharon, one of her dearest friends has just died. She doesn't know, but you do. But even though you know, you can't find it in you to tell her. If you give away the magic trick before it's complete, the performance loses it's magic, the show ruined, so you stay silent. The illusion needs to be whole to work properly.

It doesn't matter how long you have to wait, because you will wait. You will stay vigil, and wait for Reim to come around, to start his heart from its dormant state once more. Because Reim is going to live into old age, he's going to age normally, and be an even stodgier old man than he is now. Old age is going to harden and soften him in the same stroke.

You weren't too late, because Reim isn't dead. He's in a trance, and when the hypnotist snaps his fingers, Reim will come right out of death once more.

All you have to do, is wait.


End file.
